Delilah is a
bit of a loner who prefers spending her time in the school library with
her head in a book—one book in particular. Between the Lines may be a fairy tale, but it feels real. Prince Oliver is brave, adventurous, and loving. He really speaks to Delilah.

And then one day Oliver actually speaks to her. Turns out, Oliver is
more than a one-dimensional storybook prince. He’s a restless teen who
feels trapped by his literary existence and hates that his entire life
is predetermined. He’s sure there’s more for him out there in the real
world, and Delilah might just be his key to freedom.

Delilah
and Oliver work together to attempt to get Oliver out of his book, a
challenging task that forces them to examine their perceptions of fate,
the world, and their places in it. And as their attraction to each other
grows along the way, a romance blossoms that is anything but a fairy
tale.

I was surprised to see this magically
in my mailbox one day from Simon & Schuster Canada. I was pretty
excited to receive such a great book without having to beg
ask for a review copy. I really didn't know a lot about the book, but
I loved the cover right away and had heard a lot of bloggers chatting
about it. To be honest, I've never read a Picoult book, so I had
nothing to compare this to, which is probably a really good thing
since her regular novels are not really written for young adults and
are not about fairy tales. I think it's probably best to have come
into this book with no expectations about the authors, then my review
will be unbiased.

So the biggest thing that I loved about
this book is that it has multiple point of views – the story
playing out as if the reader is reading a fairy tale, then Oliver's
actual point of view and finally we hear Delilah's side of the story.
I found it unique to tell the story in this way.

I think I identified with Delilah a
lot, because as a tween/teen I spent a lot of time reading and
dreaming of other worlds. Wanting so much more. I believed in so much
and felt that anything was possible.

“No one ever asks a kid for her
opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for
the best, and start expecting the worst. So how do you tell an adult
that maybe everything wrong in the world stems from the fact that
she's stopped believing the impossible can happen?”

The story idea is of being able to have
contact with a character in a book was so interesting. Can you
imagine reading a book and suddenly one of the characters turns his
head and looks at you and says “Hello.” I'm sure it would
shocking to say the least, but also completely incredible. I'd want
to know everything – what's it's like being inside the book, what
happens after the book closes, and why don't all books work this way.

Honestly, the love story that begins to
unfold between Delilah and Prince Oliver is sweet and innocent. They
develop this kind of need for each other and are only happiest when
in each others presence (you know when the book is open). I actually
looked forward to the different attempts at getting Oliver out of the
book, because you know when you are in love that anything seems
possible.

There are a few twists and turns in
this book that I did not see coming, but it was left open for the
possibility of a sequel, but still works as a lovely standalone read.
It was a sweet story and very quick read that I could recommend to to
tweens, teens and adults.

About the authors:

Jodi Picoult was born and raised in
Nesconset on Long Island, New York. Her first story, at age 5 was "The
Lobster Which Misunderstood." She studied writing at Princeton
University, graduating in 1987, and had two short stories published by
Seventeen magazine while still in college. Immediately after graduation,
she took on a series of miscellaneous jobs, from editing at a textbook
publishing company to teaching eighth grade English classes. Soon after,
she attended Harvard University to earn her master's degree in
education.Picoult's novels tend to center on human emotion and
complex human relationships. Most of her books' storylines incorporate a
criminal or civil case which lasts throughout the book's narrative,
concluding shortly before the book ends. In books that don't follow this
pattern, an attorney character is still often included. At the end of
nearly all of her books, there is an unexpected twist.

Samantha Van Leer is the daughter of Jodi Picoult. She is a junior in high school. She conceived the idea for this book and pitched it to her mom, who was in the middle of a book tour. In her spare time, Samantha can be found playing softball, doing contemporary dance, acting and signing in musicals, and cuddling on the ground with her three dogs, Dudley, Alvin and Oliver - for whom the prince in this fairy tale was named.

2 comments:

Glad you mostly liked it. I feel like the younger crowd would probably enjoy it a lot more than me. I mean I probably would have loved it when I was a younger teenager, but now it felt a bit simplistic to me... I started reading it, but I just couldn't get into it, so I set it aside and I haven't really looked at it again. :/

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